Lucid storm
by Motion to move
Summary: It was a dry storm that caused your sanity and your happiness to take shelter in a cellar in your mind. It shattered the windows that were your eyes until there was nothing but a frame and jagged glass stabbing your conscious mind with ruthlessness: Self-depreciation and self loathing.


Okay, so I'm a sucker for angst right now. I wrote one for Steve, why not Tony? Because, yeah I get bored and this is a product of a song I was listening to. That's right- a song, a country song actually.

The song is by Carrie Underwood and is called "_Blown away_" Listen to it sometime, will you?

Yeah. I went there.

I checked this for errors, but I know there are some more in there. I know it. So if you see one, I apologize in advance.

I don't own the characters or the song "Blown Away"- I do own the idea, kind of, well my head does anyways. Again- Avengers equal not mine!

Read, Review? Flame, if you have to, I like those sometimes they crack me up! Tell me what you think.

Enjoy!

* * *

"_Dry lighting cracks across the skies—those storm clouds gather—."_

Depression was a disease.

An infection of sorts, gathering in your chest first, than puffing up black clouds into your mind until it finally cast across your eyes: _desolation, misery, wretchedness_.

It was a dry storm that caused your sanity and your happiness to take shelter in a cellar in your mind. It shattered the windows that were your eyes until there was nothing but a frame and jagged glass stabbing your conscious mind with ruthlessness: _Self-depreciation and self loathing_.

It blew you away; all of you, and sometimes it was temporary, most times it was always there nagging at you until you wanted to scream for hours because crying and drowning your sorrows never worked to abate its need to just _ruin you. _

Tony knew this well enough.

In fact he was certain that if he didn't somehow cure himself of this awfulness that overtook him he would do something even worse then he already did. He would admit to himself first that he was crazy, and possibly (Without a moment of doubt) insane.

Doing the same things over and over expecting a different result- _Nothing _ever changed, _no one_ ever stayed. Tony knew too, exactly what kept making every relationship he tried to maintain fail- too. It was his inability to stay entertained (Depression) it was his narcissism (Secret self loathing) it was his action, and words, and inability to care (Because everyone left so why put the effort if he already knew the outcome?)

It was pure insanity, yet he did it anyways.

After the final blow was dealt '_Tony, I can't do this, I can't take this kind of worry this stress, Maybe we should be friends, co-workers like we were before- Tony? Tony are you even _listening_ to me?!'_

And he wasn't either, because when she started talking, he had already had too many drinks and was sitting staring at her blankly behind a haze, wondering why she looked so angry and hurt.

_Pepper_- and it was all he could think about for months afterwards.

He didn't party, he didn't really leave his house unless Fury (Black beard?) asked him to come in for one thing or another, and he just drank and thought and drank until he couldn't think. If the others (The Avengers) cared how he was acting, if they noticed no one actually said anything.

Depression wasn't a tame thing and it wasn't new to Tony- he felt it before when he could never get his cold, uncaring father to notice him. (Whose happiest day was when he shipped him off to boarding school?) Tony didn't care what Nick Fury said about his dad (Good guy, he cared, he really did) because that was some serious shit if Tony ever heard it.

No matter what Tony did with other people (That was the key thing, Machines never left him and never cared about what he did to them, they just sat back and _enjoyed_ it in their own way) it always back fired. He liked to think he was set up for this mess, and maybe he was because maybe just maybe he set himself up to fail so miserably. Tony Stark has some problems, just like everyone else and no matter what he liked to think (And he said it a lot to himself) Money doesn't buy a man happiness. It was so true it stung, except that Money could buy him temporary forgetfulness (Alcohol, lots of it) and courage in the form of liquid.

If Tony's drinking habits ever annoyed someone no one had the balls to say it to him. No one said anything at all, really, to Tony Stark- Except mean things he already knew about himself. (What are you without your suit?)

And today was no different than any other day, as it cascaded into the evening and decided, what the hell- and took a trip to a place where people didn't actually know him: Deep, Deep fields of Oklahoma. He stayed in a Hotel that wasn't fancy, but it was good enough, he signed in under an alias because no need to get the press involved. He could see the headlines now "Tony Stark, in Oklahoma? Plans for a new building? Or is he seeing a secret Mistress?" Yeah, he's had too much to drink already.

What he didn't count on, lying in the okay bed, staring at the horrible wall paper, listening to the sounds of wind outside the window was to turn the news on, only for the program to be cut short with a strange noise. It was a noise anyone would recognize as the words "Warning: National weather service's report severe thunderstorms Six miles south of"

Tony hit the off button sliding off the bed that creaked and padding silently across the carpeted floor to peek out of the blinds. The sky was dark, grey clouds mixing with an ugly green, lighting cracked across the sky and he started counting seconds 'one, Two, Three, four" and then, loud enough to shake the entire building thunder roared across the planes.

He should have been concerned. He let the blinds go, watching them sway from the momentum he gave them but the only thing he could think was '_If I survive, it's a sign from god I have purpose here_' which was a drunken thought, and really, really, stupid.

The sirens in the small town in Oklahoma's planes started to go off, just as the thick band of rain hit the hotel Tony was staying in. He mutely walked around the horribly decorated space before sinking back onto the bed.

If he was scared, he didn't show it at first, the sounds of braches hitting the building and his window causing him to jerk, sloshing the amber liquid he was drinking all over his shirt. "Fuck" Tony slurred his blurry vision flickering around for a towel.

It never occurred to him to find some kind of shelter in this hotel room, the lights above him yellow and flickering- still forgotten as he laid spread out across the bed. One fist gripped the bottle tightly like it was a life line for him. "Blow me away!" Tony said lifting the lucid and heavy limb with the bottle off the bed maybe six inches before he let it fall back on the mattress.

While the storm raged, and the sirens sounded loudly outside but muffled in his room he took a deep gulp of his liquid courage, his tranquility and forgetfulness in a bottle. Once it was empty though he threw it across the room and was deaf to the shattering noise.

Wind howled outside and he closed his eyes '_If I survive this it's a sign from god I have purpose here still'_ and while the thought was still a drunk one, it was a true one. Can't say he killed himself if the storm did it for him, could he? Faintly his logical and reasonable mind was telling him he needed to get into the bathroom- because if there was a twister that would be the only safe place to be right now. It wasn't a proven thing, but it seemed to work out well, and the stability of a hotel was nothing to the fighting force of a tornado that would rip it to shreds.

"Oh god" Tony heard himself say, rolling over to curl up on the mattress and huddle there. Fear was a powerful thing still, even though Tony couldn't care less if the storm did in fact, produce a tornado. If it wasn't going to though, would the sirens be screaming at the people of the small town to take shelter? It took him a few minutes to do the math of probability in his head and each way he did it the answer was always _'No, it wouldn't, it goes off because there IS a twister somewhere outside plowing through the town.'_ And that's when the fear he felt in his chest became too real.

He was aware, faintly, that he had no shelter to take except the bathroom and he knew that getting there without falling over from dizziness wasn't going to happen. Tony never hated his depression, and his rage and his stupidity more in his entire life. He shook, and curled tighter into the fabric of the musty smelling hotel mattress and twisted it in his fists letting out a strangled gasping sob.

It felt like an eternity, until the sirens stopped. It was an eternity after the wind and rain ebbed and tapered off that he cried his sorrows into the bed sheets of a bed that wasn't his.

Tony sobbed and wailed and screamed and cried so hard he eventually fell asleep- into his tears soaked whisky tasting depression.

The sound of someone knocking on his hotel door jostled him into the conscious world, his mind still buzzing from how much he drank, a head ache pulsing through his temples. Again the harsh knocking assaulted his sensitive still buzzed burning mind and he scrambled to get up stumbling over sheets. Kicking his foot he loses the sheets and stumbles to the door unlocking it with clumsy fingers throwing it open to stare at who was knocking. He looked like hell, he realized as his mind processed that she wasn't that bad looking- good looking even- and he managed a crooked smile. "Can I help you?" His tongue felt like sandpaper in his mouth and he could taste the vile salt of cotton.

"I- uh" She fiddled with the ends of her grey jacket hazel eyes flickering back and forth across his face before stumbling over the walk way in front of the door.

"I heard you screaming and I thought I'd check now that the storm has passed on and um…" Tony watched her nervousness and her scowl at her inability to actually speak full sentences. He wanted to interject to say something witty and very much Tony-Stark- approved but nothing came as he slumped against the door frame, his other hand braced against the jam to keep him steady.

"Are you okay?" Clearly he was, he was standing here wasn't he? Her eyes leveled on his and he stared back for too long before his eyes moved down in a far cry of shame. He might still be tipsy but he wasn't so drunk that he couldn't acknowledge that he was a stupid, ugly, mentally unstable drunk of a billionaire. His eyes found comfort in the soft curves of her slightly curled black hair that poked out from under the grey hood, moving down to trace the lines of a plaid red and tan shirt before finding her black boots extremely fascinating.

"Fine, thanks" He pushed off the door and turned back towards his room to close it when she started talking again, fast and almost desperate to keep his attention "I'm sorry this is probably weird but I was told to make sure everyone here was alright, and to ask if you might help us with cleaning up some of the wreckage."

Tony froze turning slowly it a curious and hesitant expression on his face. He was rumpled himself, not near as clean as she was his hair sticking up all over his shirt stained from the amber liquid courage he downed the night before Jeans and shoes still on his body "Wreckage?" He asked feeling numb '_There was a tornado after all_'

"Yes, Sir" She said sounding polite and offering a shaky smile as his eyes drew back to her fiddling hands. "F-2 torn through a neighborhood about three miles south of us, I was looking to gather some people to ride over in my truck to help out if you're not busy." He stared at her sadly and didn't know why he nodded to her.

"Oh thank you sir, it really means a lot to us." She pressed a smile on her face, she was everything Tony would have picture for someone who lived in the fields of Oklahoma, a type of country that he never saw in big cities. "We're leaving in my tuck in twenty minutes, its big and red, a beast really- you'll see us gatherin' there, see you soon?" She said turning slightly to go her black boots clicking on the concrete. Tony nodded dumbly, "Yeah I'll be there, beautiful" And god damn his mouth.

She took it in stride though laughing richly and shaking her head "Alright, stranger, Folks around here call me Maxwell, holler for me if you can't find us, it echoes well in the parkin' lot." And there was that accent, not thick but just there, a sweet sound to his dying ears. "Sure let me just…" Tony glanced back into his room frowning, "Let me get cleaned up a little." And she said her farewell and sees you soon as she waved a dainty hand and started walking towards the next hotel door.

It didn't take him long to clean himself up, having enough sense to at least pack himself an extra pair of clothes apparently. His mind throbbed and ached and when he left the room after grabbing all his things (There wasn't a lot) pocketing a phone that was shut off, and a wallet that was mostly empty he closed the door squinting his eyes up at the sky.

This was some kind of irony, he knew it, staring blankly at the sky that was bright and blue peppered with white and gray fluffy clouds. The sun was bright and hurt his head a little. Tony took a breath of the fresh feeling air into his lungs and held it before blowing it out. This was some kind of symbol of his mood- his depression- except he still hasn't see the metaphorical sun light after a storm that has been raging in his body for years.

He survived though.

'_I guess I do still have something to offer this world_' and even though the parking lot was littered with debris, the sun shone brightly down on them. Stepping down he fiddled with keys he didn't need right now and pocketed them along with his hands starting towards the parking lot where he saw people headed. It was always good to follow the crowd, the chattered that was going on in the small group loud enough for him to catch from this distance as the red truck he was promised would be there came into view.

No one crowed and shouted and begged for an autograph, no one really noticed Tony Stark at all; they just accepted him as another person to help with tired smiles and sad eyes. "Hey" Tony said to one particularly old man who looked every bit as country as some of the others did. Running a hand through his hair to tame a mess he knew wouldn't be tamed with just jerky movements he took a breath of nervousness because this was something that was a far cry from what he was used to.

"Are we leaving soon?"

"Yes son, we are"

Tony gave a shaky smile, "Great, let's get going then."

The elderly man laughed round glasses sitting on his face, "Be patient son, we'll be leavin' 'ere soon." And he clapped a hand on Tony's shoulder that felt comforting- a stranger being comforting and kind.

"It's tragic, ain't it?"

Tony looked at the man then curiously sad as he gazed into his wise eyes. "It is" Tony said because he didn't know what else to say.

"There ain't nothin' nobody could've done to stop that twister, but we're stronger for it."

"How's that?" Because Tony wanted to know.

The old man smiled at her and clapped his shoulder once more before he started to walk with the others to get into the back of the large truck. "Because, son, it might be a damn tragedy it took those people's homes, but it brings us together. Goes to show you that nuthin' really stops you in yer tracks, there is always hope."

Tony stood still and rooted in his spot for a while watching the man with an intelligent and foggy head, a mind that was tipsy but clearing. "Yeah I guess you're right" He said with a shrug and another half formed smile as he walked after the man glancing back to stare at the pretty blue sky. He was comforted, and felt so right and at home as he hopped into the back of the truck with all these people who were talking to him in passing and joking with each other.

And Tony rode with them down the road, across the still damp and bumpy road surveying the damage the winds caused. They were all so hopeful, and so strong. Tony closed his eyes and sighed deeply.

It gave him hope, and for now he'd pretend to be just the average country man living in Oklahoma helping these people because they asked, and they needed it- and not as Tony Stark billionaire, not as Ironman, but just tony.

It felt good, that being just Tony was good enough to these people.

"_-Every tear soaked whisky memory blown away—there's not enough rain in Oklahoma to wash the sins out of that house—."_


End file.
